"Life is hard when you don’t know who you are. It’s harder when you don’t know *what* you are. ...
I was lost for years. Searching while hiding. ...
I won’t hide anymore. I will live the life I choose."
-- Bo Dennis, "Lost Girl"

therefore, be it resolved that: this blog is intended for mature readers.

However, this blog is not age-restricted.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Remember What We Fight Against, and What We Fight For

Remember What We Fight Against,

And What We Fight For,

A Sense of Perspective on Liberty? (Part 7),

by Liviana (Giovanna L.)

Remember what we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for.

"Brothers and sisters, this is the nation we can create when we stand together, and not let people divide us. They have unlimited sums of money. They own much of this country. They control much of the media. They are very powerful. But we have something they do not have. We have a united people."
~ Senator Bernie Sanders, telling us what we are fighting against

The Hillary Clinton campaign is opening a new initiative to attempt to discourage us from supporting Dr. Jill Stein, as reported in this article in The New York Times yesterday. As before, with their "Correct the Record" effort (which most of us recognize as "Corrupt the Record"), this will be another legion of paid trolls offering harassment and illogical talking points, with what the Hillary campaign hopes will be a heavy dose of "Public Relations" rhetoric (propaganda), but which will more likely be the same sort of intellectually challenged thuggery as we saw last time, with pornography and outrageous conspiracy theories presented on sites and social networks which support Doctor Jill Stein. They will likely repeat the same old smears about Dr Stein which the Hillary campaign has tried in the past. They will be pushing the narrative of "the big bad Trump" heavily. They will be promoting the debunked bullshit about how Nader supposedly caused the election of Dubya. They will highlight the positive record of Hillary, while ignoring all the negatives, because the Hillary campaign believes we're all just poor, stupid, uninformed kids who don't know who she is. They will plead and beg and threaten and cajole and promise, but they are LIARS working for a LIAR.

Ralph Nader did not lose the election for Al Gore in 2000. Al Gore lost the election for Al Gore in 2000. He had the personality of a dead fish, he did not inspire, he did not make his case. Everything the Democrats said about 2000, then and now, hinged on the general election in Florida. They will tell you that 1% of Democrats in Florida voted for Ralph Nader, and that if that 1% had voted for Gore, Gore would have won. What the Democrats do not tell you is that 13% of Democrats in Florida voted for George W. Bush in 2000. Nader did not lose the election for Gore. Gore did not inspire Florida Democrats to vote for him. Gore lost the election all by himself. Ron Chusid, in the Liberal Values blog, took on the discredited bullshit about Nader in the post, "Debunking the Ralph Nader Scare Tactics For Supporting The Lesser Evil." Tony Schinella, in the Politizine blog, took on the actual numbers and showed the lie for what it is, in his post, "DEBUNKING THE MYTH: Ralph Nader didn't cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000." You can also read Jim Hightower's analysis of the nationwide election results at Salon, here. No, Ralph Nader is not to blame. Establishment Democrats have no-one to blame but themselves, but like their beloved Hillary blaming Russia for leaking emails which expose negatives in Hillary's past (as well as collusion between her campaign and the DNC), they cannot bring themselves to admit fault, and have tried to blame others for their own mistakes and wrongdoing.

Now, in 2016, vast swathes of the electorate are sick to death of the establishment and the two establishment parties. Record numbers of voters do not want Hillary Clinton OR Donald Trump to win. Those voting for Hillary are mostly voting against Trump, and those voting for Trump are mostly voting against Hillary. The exceptions, those who genuinely support the candidate, are the dyed-in-the-wool, unthinking partisan types, who vote party as a matter of course, without much analysis of the candidates or what they stand for, nor their records.
26% of Americans registered to vote are registered as Republicans.
17% of Americans registered to vote are registered as Democrats and support Hillary Clinton.
14% of Americans registered to vote supported Bernie Sanders during the primary election. Of those, more than half have switched their support to Jill Stein following the Democratic National Convention.43% of Americans registered to vote are registered as independent, no party preference, or as a member of a third party.

We have the numbers. We just need to get the information about the Green Party platform and Dr Jill Stein's plan out, and we need to stand firm, reject the scare tactics and the Bifurcation fallacy.

But let's talk about that 2000 election again, or rather, the result thereof. George W. Bush became President. I need not remind you all of the disaster that was, but something which is not so well known is that much of what happened while "Dubya" was President was planned, over a year before the fact. If you're not familiar with the Project for the New American Century, you can read up on it at Wikipedia, at SourceWatch, and at Information Clearing House. Many PNAC personnel were given appointments in Dubya's cabinet. What you should really know, however, is that, in September of 2000, the PNAC published a paper called "Rebuilding America's Defenses" in which plans for Afghanistan and Iraq were laid out, almost a year before the events of 11 September 2001, the covert insertion of the CIA's Special Activities Division into Afghanistan on 26 September 2001 as a precursor to a larger invasion, and the passage of the "USA PATRIOT Act" on 26 October 2001. On 20 March 2003, based on what are now described as "intelligence failures," the US invaded Iraq. The results of all of these actions include the spread of "al-Qaeda" to other Islamic nations. You can read or download (and then read) "Rebuilding America's Defences" from this archive.

It doesn't end there. On 21 March 2011, with the full support (and urging) of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton, the US under Obama's leadership, and the UK under Cameron's leadership, together with other NATO forces, invaded Libya and killed Muammar Gaddafi. According to a UK parliamentary foreign-affairs committee report, the UK's involvement in this was based on “erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding” of the situation there, as reported in an article published by The Wall Street Journal. One of the results of this was the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in 2012. Among other results of this destabilization of Libya was the establishment of al-Qaeda in Libya and the rise of Daesh (which is more commonly known as "ISIS," "ISIL," "IS," or "the Islamic State," but "Daesh" is a much more accurate name for them, its meaning in Arabic being "a group of bigots who impose their will on others," as discussed by Alice Guthrie in this post).

In 2012, an article discussing the PNAC was published in Global Research, speculating that the next US invasion would be an invasion of Syria.

Established in February of 2007, the CNAS, or Center for a New American Security, includes several former members of the PNAC (which ceased function in 2006). The CNAS is closely associated with Hillary Clinton. In May of 2016, the CNAS published a paper called "Expanding American Power," which you can read, or download (and then read), here. Among other things, this paper points fingers at Russia, engages in revisionist history concerning the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and demands régime change in Syria. Mrs Clinton has been rattling a saber at Russia for a while now, and has been pushing for a "no fly" zone over Syria, as well as the CNAS goal of régime change in Syria. The CNAS also strongly supports the TPP and the TPIP. You may draw your own conclusions from this information. I'm sure you've guessed that my conclusions, based on her Neoconservative tendencies to support Israel and promote wars for oil, is that she intends to invade Syria if she's elected President. This conclusion is also upheld by the revelation of a Clinton email (thanks to WikiLeaks), in which it is said that "The best way to help Israel deal with Iran's growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad." You can view the email here.

I could go on talking about Hillary's record, her numerous claims to have made "a mistake," or that she "misspoke," and her rampant twisting of the truth. The conclusion is either 1. she's telling the truth and is terribly incompetent, 2. she's lying, 3. the Transverse Sinus Thrombosis from which she suffers has caused brain damage and she honestly does not remember what she did or said, or 4. some combination of the first three conclusions. Regardless of which of those conclusions correct, she is not qualified for or worthy of the office of President of the United States of America.

She will lead the US into more of the "endless war" which began under George W. Bush. That much is a given, assuming she will live long enough to do so (but we'll come back to her health momentarily). Her perspective on imperialism/interventionism or non-interventionism is identical to that of any other Neoconservative.

On questions of Economics, she has demonstrated a firm commitment to continuing the Neoliberalism which her husband embraced, which has in fact characterized every US President since Ronald Reagan took office. She supports the TPP, in spite of her more recent rhetoric to which she was pushed by Bernie Sanders and Berners to whom she had intended to appeal. However, her selection of Tim Kaine as her Vice Presidential running mate indicates that she has only changed the tune, but not the substance, of her message. She will push the TPP if she be elected and take office. And that's not all. Her campaign contributions came from the "too big to fail" banking industry, Wall Street, the petroleum industry, the for-profit prison industry, and other representatives of the establishment corporatocracy. These contributions are well documented. She will not rein in Wall Street or high-risk lending or the oil companies. She will not impose regulations, but relax them. She exported fracking around the world and won't be doing anything to stop it if elected. She will not, in short, do a damned thing to combat global warming or economic injustice, but will instead continue the status quo of business as usual. In short, Hillary Clinton is a Republican, regardless of her running as a Democrat.

Now, about Mrs Clinton's health, a lot of her supporters have howled that all this concern is nothing but "right wing conspiracy theory." Yet, following the events of 11 September 2016, when she "passed out" or "fainted" leaving the 9/11 Memorial service in NYC, even the main stream media, which has heretofore been all in for Hillary, yes, even they began to ask questions (including no less a Hillary propaganda outlet than The Washington Post itself, which has previously fallen over itself to lick Mrs Clinton's boot). About the same time, more Clinton emails were leaked by the hacker "Guccifer 2.0," and included therein was this email, originally sent on 4 January 2013, from Huma Abedin to Hillary Clinton, in which Ms Abedin quotes an article by Doctor Marc Siegel, discussing Hillary's condition, "Right Transverse Sinus Thrombosis," and urging that the media practice respect for Mrs Clinton's privacy and restraint in their reporting. Now, the source being a hacker, some of the Hillary supporters are likely to reject it as a forgery or some kind of conspiracy theory, but the fact is that it was a response to a piece done by ABC News on 31 December 2012, which CONFIRMED this diagnosis and which you can read (and watch an accompanying video for) here. Since that ABC News piece and the subsequent article by Dr Siegel, we've heard little or nothing from the main stream media about "Transverse Sinus Thrombosis," especially in connection with Hillary Clinton.

So what exactly is this condition, "Transverse Sinus Thrombosis"? Let's see what the American Heart Association has to say. In an article published on 12 July 2012 in one of their journals, the journal named Stroke, Volume 43, Number 7, we find some explanation. The article, titled "Differentiation of Transverse Sinus Thrombosis From Congenitally Atretic Cerebral Transverse Sinus With CT," explains as follows:

Thrombosis of the cerebral dural venous sinuses is an uncommon but potentially devastating cause of stroke, which has a predilection for women and the young.

Now you say, "Well, that's great, Giovanna, but what difference does that make? What does it mean? What are the symptoms and possible complications?"

I'm glad you asked. Johns Hopkins tells us the symptoms and possible complications, in this article:

Symptoms of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis may vary, depending on the location of the thrombus. Responding quickly to these symptoms makes it more possible to recover.
These are the physical symptoms that may occur:
Headache
Blurred vision
Fainting or loss of consciousness
Loss of control over movement in part of the body
Seizures
Coma
...
Complications of venous sinus thrombosis include:
Impaired speech
Difficulty moving parts of the body
Problems with vision
Headache
Increased fluid pressure inside the skull
Pressure on nerves
Brain injury
Developmental delay
Death

"Okay, okay," you say, "that does sound pretty bad, but the same article points out that she can live just fine under proper medical supervision." Yes, yes it does. Under proper medical supervision.

"Well, what difference does it make anyway!?" you demand. Indeed, what difference does it make? Well, let's consider what would happen if Mrs Clinton died in office. We all know the answer. Her Vice President would take over. Do you know much about Tim Kaine? An article published on 14 September 2016 in The Huffington Post suggests that we ought to be very concerned with Hillary's health, precisely because of who Tim Kaine is. The article, linked here, says, among other things:

...

As Kaine stated repeatedly in campaign ads when running for Governor – which used the catchphrase “these are my values and that’s what I believe” – “I’m conservative.” ...

He is a man who stood with George W. Bush on Iraq, professing to “share the President’s view,” and continued as a champion for neoconservative imperialism as a Senator. Kaine led the effort to get Congressional approval for the use of military force against ISIS, which to that point had been ongoing illegally, mocking opponents as “afraid.” He has advocated for the enactment of a “safe zone” in Syria which would “need US military assets to protect it,” – put another way, ‘ground troops’ – and in a time of ostensible non-proliferation supports strengthening America’s nuclear capability.

As a pro-coal Governor, and the Senator who co-sponsored legislation to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling, Kaine has been an environmental antagonist, often drawing criticism from activists and related organizations.

... For Tim Kaine, trade deals continuing the labor (not to mention sovereignty)-crushing legacy of NAFTA are “something I feel really passionate about.” As Governor he sent letters of support for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement and others, voted to fast-track the TPP as a Senator, and was passionate enough to critique the “loser’s mentality” of those who opposed this agenda.

And while Donald Trump throws around “loser” as an insult from a man who told people they were fired on television, Tim Kaine does so as a politician who oversaw the execution of 11 people as Governor. ... Tim Kaine has definitively been a ‘tough on crime’ politician.

Well, certain types of crime, at least. As a Senator, Kaine has been a great crusader for bank deregulation. He voted for a bill which would roll back the already modest Dodd-Frank regulations, standing in opposition to colleagues such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and earlier this year, according to Politico, was “part of a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations to prevent banks from destroying our economy.”

...

Yeah, I would have to say her health is an important consideration. Unless, you know, you want to vote for someone who has absolutely no reservations about describing himself as a "conservative," a word much misused these days, when what it describes should be more accurately named "social reactionary" or "would-be theocrat" or "Far Right Wing Extremist."

"But, but, but ... TRUMP!!!" So fucking what? Did you not pay attention to those numbers up there? Hillary cannot win in a fair and honest election against Trump, and that is what really ought to scare you, instead of the Hillary campfire host's dark fairy tale of the big bad wolf (or the big orange blowhard). This is the same dark fairy tale the Democrats have been spinning for decades already, "Vote for our candidate or you'll get this horrible fascist evil, even though our candidate is not really that inspiring." It's the same shit every four years, the "Lesser Evil" narrative. The Argumentum ad Metum. Always always always, present the candidate of the Republicans as Hitler or Mussolini, in order to terrorize the people into voting for the Democratic candidate, and totally ignore any other possible choices. Didn't work so well in 2000, did it? Or 2004, for that matter. The only reasons Obama won in 2008 and 2012 were the historical precedent of electing our first Black President and the fact of his charisma. I hate to break it to ya, but Hillary ain't got no charisma. She's so obviously a fake that most people not only refuse to trust her, they actively dislike her.

"But, but, but, ... A WOMAN PRESIDENT!!!" Yeah, that would be nice, if it were the right woman. Hillary isn't the right woman.

"Oh, I see, so you're just a sexist and a misogynist!" No, toots, I'm a woman myself, and no, I don't have any "internalized misogyny." I just think Hillary Clinton is a tremendously shitty choice for President, and her uterus, her chromosomes, and her gender identity have nothing to do with it. But, you know, I am supporting a woman for President. So that "sexist and misogynist" line isn't remotely realistic, and you know it. You're just making yourselves look like bigoted idiots with that. It's past time to stop shrieking that line, which was tried back in 2008, too, and it didn't work then, either. It also cheapens the terms when you apply them to anyone who disagrees with you on any given issue, which is part of the reason so many people have in recent years rejected the label "Feminist," because the loudest voices in Feminism these days are the "safe space" snowflakes who accuse any dissenters of being "sexist" and "misogynistic" and "homophobic" and "transphobic" and "transmisogynistic." For the record, I'm Bisexual, and I used to be a Moderator in an LGBTI support group, till it was shut down by the host, who shut down all groups at their site at the same time, for reasons I have not been told. Bear false witness against someone else. I don't buy your Third Wave Authoritarianism which you think is "Feminism." I'm old enough to remember Second Wave Feminism, and when I listen to Feminists (and I do), the ones I listen to are Second Wave Feminists, not self-righteous and ill-informed busybodies like bell hooks and Anita Sarkeesian. I'm not a supporter of Emily's List. I vote for a person because of what they stand for, not because of their chromosomal sex or gender identity.

And so let me make it plain to you, that we are not merely fighting against both Trump and Hillary and the Establishment which they both represent, but we are fighting for something, too.

"The unique thing about the Green Party is that we are the one national party that is not corrupted by corporate money, by lobbyist money, or by super PACs, so we have the unique ability to actually stand up for what it is that the American people want, what everyday people want, that is, we have a jobs emergency, and we call for an emergency jobs program that will actually solve the emergency climate change that we are seeing in the floods and the fires and the heatwaves across this country that are so painful to watch right now. This is what the future looks like, if we don't stand up and start doing something about it. We're the one party that is actually calling for cancellation of student debt and bailing out a generation of young people ... make higher education free, and healthcare as a human right, and create a welcoming path to citizenship, end police violence, and a foreign policy that's based on international law, human rights, and economic justice."
~ Doctor Jill Stein, telling us what we are fighting for

Stand firm, Berners. Keep that Fire BERNing Green. Stand for what is right. Stop being afraid. Reject the politics of fear. Reject the Bifurcation Fallacy. If there were ever a year in which a third party candidate has a real chance to win the presidency, it is 2016. THIS is our moment. THIS is our chance. THIS is what we MUST do. WE are the revolution. WE are "The Bern." Hillary hopes to unleash a storm upon us, but WE are the storm which will wash away the corrupt establishment.

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About the Author

"Liviana" is the philosophical nom de plume of Giovanna Laine, in a nod to the practice among the American thinkers who debated Confederation and Federalism during the late 1700s, writing in The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers under such Roman noms de plume as Cato, Publius, Brutus, etc.

A philosopher, logician, and linguist by training, a huge fan of Star Trek, a gamer, and a member and supporter of the Green Party of the United States, Miss Laine also loves to cook Italian cuisine. A native Texan, she currently resides somewhere in the wilderness of the American South with three cats, several guitars, a few firearms, and an extensive library of books, magazines, journals, comic books, videos, and music.

And yes, guys, she has a boyfriend.

The Author

"Liviana" (Giovanna Laine)

About the Names

"Liviana" is Latin for "Livia-like," or "Similar to Livia." Several Roman women had the name Livia, including the wife of Augustus Caesar (Livia Drusilla, later known as Julia Augusta, regarded by some historians as "the first Empress of Rome"). The original meaning of livius, livia, and livium would have been "dark bluish grey," and the modern English word "livid" derives from the related Latin word "lividus." "Liviana" as a personal name would therefore mean something like "similar to Livia" (as noted above) in reference to some similarity to another woman whose name was Livia, or "similar to dark bluish grey" in some way.

However, the author adopted the name primarily in honor of the Star Trek character Liviana t'Charvanek (aka Di'on t'Charvon, aka Thea), a Romulan woman who commanded not one Romulan warbird, but a fleet of at least three vessels of the Romulan Star Navy, at a time when women in the United Federation of Planets were not allowed to command even a single starship in Starfleet (later series have retconned this restriction, but it seems to have been regarded as "canon" during the time when TOS was in production and for some time afterwards):

Livia is a Latin name (the feminine form of "Livius" and not a short form of "Olivia," although it certainly can be used as such), and not Hebrew. The Hebrew word confused with "Livia" on a few baby name websites is actually "Lavi" ("L'via" or "Levia" in modern Hebrew), which means "Lioness," and which is linguistically unrelated to the Latin name "Livia." The transliterated /v/ in "Lavi" represents a "doubled" Hebrew letter Beth, with the sound of an English /v/, while the /v/ in "Livia" is in no need of transliteration, but represents the sound of an English /w/ in Classical Latin. Thus, LAH-vee or lə-VEE-ah versus LIH-wee-ə exposes the reality that the seeming similarity is an illusion based solely on orthography without phonetic basis. Moreover, the etymology of the two names also varies, with one deriving from Proto-Canaanite (a Semitic language) and the other from Proto-Italic (an Indo-European language); the two names do not even have the same meaning. No doubt should exist that "Livia" is a Latin (Roman) name, at least for anyone with formal training in Linguistics and Classical Latin.

The blog is called "Random Musings from a Muse," because the author may discuss (or "muse upon") a wide variety of (seemingly "random") topics, ranging from philosophy and logic to linguistic matters and even her latest culinary experiment, in the hope of inspiring others to think and create (and so she seeks to act as a "muse" in some sense).